Leaderhead Help

[kablooiee]

Ok, so I managed to make a leaderhead by editing Augustus Caesar's original one. The leaderhead looks perfectly fine in NifSkope, and it works with Augustus' animation .kf files.
But when I open Civipedia, it's a mangled, animated mess as you can see in the picture below.

I've seen quite a few people with similar problems, but I have no idea how to solve it. I'm sure it has something to do with the shader that you see in Nifskope (I don't know how to explain it, see the second screenshot below). The shader you see there is copied from the original Augustus Caesar's leaderhead.

Without the shader turned on, nothing shows up apart from the eyeshadow, the teeth and the tongue. With the shader turned on, it shows up but is a mangled mess.

How am I supposed to fix this?

I'm making a shader version of the leaderhead, and thanks for any help.

 

[cool3a2]

I am not a pro in leaderhead creation, but at least already fixed some glitches of LHs made by others. I doubt that the distortion has something to do with the shader. In sceneviewer / nifviewer some LHs may not be displayed if the shader is turned on (depends on whether you start sceneviewer from its installation path directly and then open the nif file or if you right-click on the nif and then select open with sceneviewer), but they work perfectly in game. With nifskope I didn't have this sort of problems, for me the LHs are all displayed unshadered there, no matter if there is a shader or not. Maybe the shader setting is wrong though, compare the materials and alphas of the original nif and yours (preferably in sceneviewer). Still this is probably not what causes the distortion, it only makes your nif invisible.
However, I'd say the problem is the skin. The skin itself is in some terms related to the shader. If there is a SkinInstance assigned to the mesh, then the shader has to be TLeaderheadShader_20, if there is no SkinInstance, then the shader has to be TLeaderheadShaderNoSkin_20. But even if you would have the wrong shader, the symptoms would be different. My guess is that you forgot the meshswap. Both Blender and 3ds max have problems exporting nifs (at least I don't think it is planned that the nif gets distorted). That why you have to open both, the original nif and you exported one. Then copy all meshs of your nif (copy branch in contect menu of the mesh) to the original nif (the root=first node needs to have the same name in both nifs before). In the parent nodes of the original meshs change the child reference to the original mesh to your changed mesh. Do this for all your meshs. After that remove the original meshs (replaced mesh should be isolated from the rest now) you don't need. Save the nif (do not override the original file ).
That description was a bit undetailed. There is a tutorial in the tutorial section of civfanatics written by ploeperpengel about shading with 3ds max. There you will also find a description about exporting a nif. The second post there should be what you search for. It was written by C.Roland I think, shows how to do meshswap in nifskope and should be independent from the program you have edited the nif with before.

 

[The_Coyote]

which script version did you used? [it´s a problem with the SkinPartition (if you ahve the latest, remove the skinPartition {child of NiSkinInstance}) - shader leaderheads seems to work a bit different [they dont´have a SkinPartiton but tangent spaces]]

 

[cool3a2]

shader leaderheads seems to work a bit different [they dont´have a SkinPartiton but tangent spaces]

At least my shaded Corvinus got one. Don't know if he's special...

 

[kablooiee]

Cool3a2, I've done the nifswap (or meshswap) in Roland's tutorial.

The_Coyote, when I delete the SkinPartitions, the game crashes once I open my leader's Civipedia page. I'm using the latest Nif Script.

 

[cool3a2]

Cool3a2, I've done the nifswap (or meshswap) in Roland's tutorial.

Hmmm... then ignore what I wrote so far. Still, I don't think it is shader related. Shader is about materials, nothing that could cause your troubles, I'd say. I can remember that I had an LH having two copies of each bone. After nifswapping the wrong copy of the bones got assigned to the mesh causing some distortions. But you only worked on an original LH shipped out with civ4...

 

[The_Coyote]

if you use the latest version, did you used the new option (something like extra shader textures)? I see you model is a NiTriShape (than it needs a SkinPartition), try to export it again using the default settings

Also now saw that you missed the -1 after the shader name (unknown integer)